Old Town of Poznań

Poznań is the largest city in Western Poland. It has been founded in 1253 and for the next five hundred years it has been guarded by city walls.

Nowadays you can only see the ruins of the wall.

The building next to it is a fire station so you may say that it is a special place for the safety of the city also today.

I only hope that the fire brigade does not rely on these old fashion pumps.

If the walls would not be a protection enough, the people of Poznań made sure that they have two powerful guardians. They even put them in their coat of arms. And they did not chose modestly since they selected Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Let's walk to the Market Square. It is surrounded by very nice residential buildings in vivid colours.

The most important building is of course the Town Hall, with its tall towers.

Now look carefully at the little door over the clock.

It is opening! And something is getting out of there!

These are goats!

And they do not seem too friendly to each other.

Around the Town Hall you can see several statues. Some are religious ...

... while others are definitely pagan.

In this building you will find the Museum of Literature.

Finally, a monument dedicated to a horse! It commemorates the fifteenth regiment of uhlans, the first regiment of cavalry in the Wielkopolska Uprising.

Though obviously, the most popular animal monument in Poznań is this one ...

Look at the clock on the wall, it is time that we move on.

Our next point of interest is round the corner. I will show it to you next week.

Bengaluru holy and ancient sites

Let' start our today trip around Bangalore at the gate, where everything started. In the first half of 16th century, Kempe Gowda I, a chieftain of the Vijayanagara Empire, founded the modern Bangalore. One of its first building was the Bangalore Fort.

Let me introduce you to Kempe Gowda I and his horse.

Let's enter the gate.

In fact all that remains of the fort is the Delhi Gate and remnants of two bastions. After they captured the fort in 1791, the British started dismantling it, a process that continued till the 1930s. Most of it is visible on the picture below.

Together with a small holy cow.

The last ruler of Mysore, the kingdom Bangalore was part of before English invasion, was Sultan Tipu. Let's visit his palace.

In fact it is a Summer Palace, so it is quite open.

The structure was built entirely teak and stands adorned with pillars, arches and balconies.

There are beautiful floral motifs embellishing the walls of the palace.

It is believed that Tipu Sultan used to conduct his durbar (court) from the eastern and western balconies of the upper floor.

And there is a hinduism Kote Venkataramana Swamy temple just next to it, built in 1689 by King Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar, then ruler of Mysore.

This is the entrance to the temple.

In fact there are plenty of hinduist temples around Bangalore.

Some of them are not even higher than the buildings nearby.

This is the entrance to the area sourounding one of the most important hinduism temples, the Big Bull temple.

But people of different religions also can find places for their prayer.

Like very European in the style St. Patrick's Church.

or one of the main churches in the city - St. Mary's Basilica.

I hope that you have enjoyed our trip to Bangalore. It is a huge city so we still haven't seen everything. Maybe we will visit it one more time one day.

Bengaluru city centre

Last trip we have finished following the holy cows. Tracking them we arrived to the Bengaluru city centre and its main building as the capital of Karnataka state.

Ladies, gentleman and horses, welcome to Vidhana Soudha, the building of the Karnatak state perliament. You can think it is "just" a state legislature, but remembering about Karnataka population of over 60 million inhabitants, its decisions influence a population similar to those of largest European countries. As everything in India it is huge, 700 m long, 350 m wide and 50 m heigh.

Just in front of the building there is a statue of the father of Indian constitution, B. R. Ambedkar.

On the other side of the street stands the seat of the High Court of Karnataka.

Next to it comes also an entrance to the Bengaluru metro.

Coming back to the parlimant buidling, you can admire its interesting style, sometimes described as Mysore Neo-Dravidian. It incorporates elements of Indo-Saracenic and Dravidian styles.

South of the central building you will find the Sri Chamajarendra Park.

Great place to rest from the rush, noise and heat of the city.

Some of the trees are really impressive.

This is also the case for some of the avenues.

In the middle of the park you will find the State Central Library of Bengaluru. I really think this is a great idea to be able to borrow a book, lie on the grass and rest in the shadow.

The park ends just next to the Bengaluru Town Hall.



Quite close, at least by Indian standards, there is a memorial of all the brave Indians, that lost their lives in the First World War.

And the place where the next generation of soldiers can present to the society.

  

It is really hot in India. Before we move to the next attractions I suggest that we take a sip of fresh coconut milk.